Step 6 - Add Charts

The Charting Fields Section is clearly identified using a light blue background on the header.

CHART TYPE - The report writer allows four types of charts to be created:

• Pie chart
• Line Chart
• Vertical Bar Chart
• Stacked Vertical Bar Chart

Provided the report is constructed in a way that the charting engine can understand, creating a chart is relatively easy. After selecting a chart type all other charting defaults may be used to create the chart. Besides constructing the report in the proper manner to accommodate the charting engine, a report output type of WEB (HTML) or DASHBOARD must be used. If required, the other charting fields may be modified.

Some terms unique to charting are important to understand:

Category: Categories are difficult to define, but on a pie chart, each slice of the pie is a category. In the sample pie chart below, each slice is comprised of the number of absence days for a particular absence code. Absence codes then are the categories of that report.

On a line chart, vertical bar chart and stacked vertical bar chart, the categories are the increments that appear on the horizontal axis. 

Charting Prompts: There are five prompts to complete when creating a chart. Four of them default to reasonable/most commonly used values.Series: A 'series' is a set of values that make up the slice on a pie chart, a line on a line chart, or the bars on a bar chart. The term 'series' is easiest to understand when working with a line chart. In the above line chart example, three secondary schools are graphed across a horizontal axis of months. Each line represents one school's values for the entire year. Each line is referred to as a 'series' – i.e. a series of values. As there are three schools being graphed, there are three lines, or in other words – three series. Each of the available charting types MUST contain at least one series. A pie chart is limited to one series. All other charting types can have any number of series.

• If the chart type is left blank, the report writer will not attempt to create a chart.
• the width (in pixels) of the chart can be modified
• the height (in pixels) of the chart can be modified

Swap Category determines whether to swap the category with the series. Choose NO to not swap. Typically on a chart, the Category represents range of items to be charted (e.g. absence codes, receivable codes) while the Series represent the values that are derived from each category. (NOTE: Pie charts cannot be swapped.).

Numeric Data Orientation allows the user to indicate whether the numeric series values should be picked up from a single column down the page or from multiple columns across the page.

• Choose Down the Page to use the numbers in a single column down the page.
• Choose Across the Page to use the numbers in multiple columns across the page.